I am still trying to find the time and the words necessary to write about what the first Constructing Modern Knowledge Institute meant to me. I hope other participants will also share their thoughts on the experience.
In the meantime, here are a few of the blogs already published about our collective learning experience.
Over time, video from the event will appear on this site as well!
Paul Wood and I visited the MIT Museum on Sunday with Gary Stager. Among the things we found were some truly awesome feats of engineering from Arthur Ganson. An incredible thinker and visionary himself, Ganson had multitudes of examples of his “tinkering” on display. When you look at these items of work, you might wonder why someone would spend so much time creating these little glorified table decorations. Some might say, “Why?” I say, “Why not?”
Scott’s blog is is well worth reading and watching!
New York City educator Michael Steinberg made a film documenting my recent Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. I think he did an admirable job capturing the spirit of CMK08, the collaborations between participants and the learning environment we created.
The quality of Michael’s effort is especially laudable since he shot and edited the video before the end of the four day event.
This is one of my favorite Ted Talks. Author and publisher Dave Eggers tells the inspirational story of how one can create a learning environment for kids outside of school. Eggers and his colleagues also demonstrate a great deal of respect for teachers and the challenges they face.
PROBLEMS SOLVED - LINKS BELOW NOW WORK AND VIDEOS PLAY
The following are a few “getting started” tutorial videos I created for MicroWorlds EX. The first two introduce the environment and the last two show you how to program your very own Pacman-style video game.
Fred Martin’s Art of LEGO
Fred Martin, the engineer behind the RCX brick, wrote a terrific paper explaining LEGO engineering principles.
The Art of LEGO 2
MIT Media Lab graduate students, Arnan (Roger) Sipitakiat, Paulo Blikstein and Rahul Bhargava created a handy color collection of strategies for assembling LEGO elements.
LEGO Robotics offers students a high-tech high-touch improvisational medium for interdisciplinary learning. An ability to identify rich problems is required to engage learners of all ages. We will explore different approaches to bringing the curriculum alive through an improvisational approach to robotics. The new MicroWorlds EX Robotics software will be used to create interdisciplinary projects that combine the real world with the screen.
Constructing Modern Knowledge stands on the shoulders of giants. The following articles help set the tone for the spirit, possibilities and powerful ideas guiding the event.
Some are whimsical, others complex. However, they’re all worthy of your consideration.
garystager on August 24th, 2008
